Sun-Times Photogs March Against Firings

Some 100 Chicago Sun-Times photographers who were abruptly fired last week, when the paper shuttered its entire 28-member photo department and their supporters, marched outside the Sun-Times building this morning to protest the paper’s “union-busting” and what they say was bad faith bargaining by the Sun-Times.

We were told that there wasn't going to be any layoffs of photographers and reporters during the bargaining process, then last Thursday all the photographers are laid off, so it also seems like some sort of union busting thing as well.

The Chicago Newspaper Guild (CNG) says it will file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board over the firings.

The crowd included many Sun-Times reporters and other staffers still on the job and community and union supporters, including Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, who said:

You all have taken cut after cut after cut. You all have worked with these people to try to put out this paper," Lewis said. "But guess what? It will never stop. They will continue to ask for more and more and more. And to get rid of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers tells you these people don't care about quality. They care about the bottom line, the spreadsheet and not the people who made that happen."

Sun-Times photographer Rick Kambic took these pictures.

Here’s what Stephen Colbert had to say about the firings on last night’s "The Colbert Report."